We have 16 games in January. 8 of those games are against teams that are a lock to make the playoffs and who are all having good, if not great (Cavs, Magic) seasons. We open up the new year with the Jazz in our house on the 2nd, then the Blazers and Hornets come here for revenge on the 4th and the 6th, respectively. We do the Rockets/Spurs Texas Two-Step on the 13th and 14th, and then get the Spurs back in Staples on January 25th. 8-8 in January is completely unacceptable, but 12-4 is certainly a reasonable goal to shoot for and possibly exceed.

All of these teams will be physical. Pau's weight room training certainly isn't enough. It is time for Andrew Bynum to kick it up a notch and to start to dominate a little more on the defensive end. Block some more shots and we'll come out of January smelling like a rose and ready to tighten things up for the stretch run.

Because if we wind up hitting a little bump in the road, then we (us fan) start to unnecessarily press panic buttons, like we did when our defense fell apart from game 8 until the 4th quarter of the Grizzlies game. Is it possible that there was some experimenting going on that the coaching staff understood while they felt they could win anyway? I'll defer to Phil Jackson on what he feels is an acceptable record at the end of this month.